Garden Design: How Little Can You Have?

How little can you have in your garden, and it still holds together?
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Garden Design, below, would hold together at a mid-century Ranchburger.  (Perhaps a new title, Garden Design for Bad Architecture, split-levels need extra thought too.  Of course I spent 30 years in my cluster home, I named a Guppy House because garage/drive predominate at front of house.)   In addition to how little you can have in your garden, how to  have a Garden Design, raising property value while raising pleasure/use.  Never to leave a penny on the table, Garden Design to reduce HVAC & maintenance expense.  Ironic, I find the more demanding you are from a Garden Design, it's easier to create, and a better Garden Design.
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Pic, above, here.
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Just back from a week working in mom's garden on Galveston Bay, TX .  Dad had asked for a hedge planting at the back fence over 2 decades ago.  Fence is straggly naked with 2 remaining misshapen hideous RED TIPS.  What was my suggestion he brazenly ignored?  Camellia sasanqua.  Yes, I still look at that fence imagining sasanquas.  Plant choices matter, in addition to Garden Design choices.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

A Touch of Black

Every garden needs an exterior color trinity.  Subsidiary colors allowed.  Green-brown-white the classic for centuries.  Black, below, boldly, tossed in instead of green.  Yet the green is there, in plantings hung on the black, and in the garden.  Blue/white, below, subsidiary to the main color trinity.
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Tell me you noticed, below, the enfilade !



Pic, above, here.
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Quick glance, appreciate the porch enfilade, with closer attention, garden enfilade travels much deeper.  Well done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

3 Layer Garden Design

An excursion, below, that should be a destination in Garden Design.



Pic, above, here.
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Using the 3 elements, above, of garden design, plan your garden.  A serious landscape, in vanishing threshold with interiors of your home, expanding lifestyle, all with ease, beauty, joy while amplifying your personal aesthetic.
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Don't know the 3 elements, above?
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Ceilings, walls, floors.  Put another way, trees, shrubs, groundcovers.  Another description, foyer, dining room, living room.  Yes, now you are seeing the trinity of elements in the design, above.
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Two types of ceiling, above.  Can you label both?  Sky & trees.  Three types of flooring, above, low meadow, gravel, a chevron pattern.  Three types of walls, tall shrubs, medium shrubs, contrasting texture shrubs.
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Pond is a nice focal point viewed from the foyer, yet equal in use to both living room & dining room.  .
Focal point on plinth, on axis with don't-know-from-this-pic.
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Never thought about a garden like this for your home?  This garden will take your further, faster, lasting longer, than most other types of gardens.
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Starting and ending points for this garden remain 180 from a garden beginning, "I want hydrangeas, peonies and..."
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Just Let It Touch

From the 80's, I've noticed, this focal point conceit, below, used in magazines & books.
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Just let it touch.



Pic, above, Here.
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If you can't just-let-it-touch, perhaps add a small leafed ivy to clamber your focal point a bit.  Though it could easily be a clematis too.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Mix Matched Outdoor Furnishings?

Layers of narrative, below.  Color echoes a home run, for starters.  White to silvers, very nice.
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Curiosity too.  Hydrangeas, below, at left in foreground, then further back, to the right.  A photographer's styling?  Perhaps a stylist guiding a photographer?
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Did your mind go there at all?  The white hydrangeas merely props?
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Hardly the 1st thing I saw in this delightful pic.
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First thing?  Field gathered furniture, all painted same color.  Voila !
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Studying historic gardens across Europe for decades it was France teaching me that trick.  No worries about field gathering garden furnishings.  Paint them all the same color.
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Huge arrow in your quiver.



Pic, above, here.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Almost a complete garden design course in this pic.  Canopy/understory trees, high/low density, scale, flow, focal point, simplicity, color, contrasts, repetition, ceiling/walls/floors, seasonal interest, winter structure, invitation, comfort, myriad uses, no chemicals, low maintenance.

Porch Furniture

Met with a client yesterday, we did their backyard 2 years ago, and she needed a quick hour.  Several topics.
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Last topic, her small front porch.  Garden catalog in hand, tape measure pulled to dimension, blue tape marking chairs/sofa feet.  Where exactly should the sofa/2 chairs be placed?  About to answer, she quickly said where her 11 year old daughter told her, "Mom, they have to go like this."  Great moment, exactly what I was about to answer.  Not the 1st time this child has said intuitive things about the garden.  We've got our eyes on her !
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Perhaps the most surprising & delightful outdoor seating, below.  Those scallop topped barrels, the folding screen, the hard-packed dirt flooring.  Is it a private home?  A small hotel?  What kind of trees are in the barrels?  Why is the screen there?  Is there anything behind the screen?
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Woman, front left, seems to be texting.



Pic, above, here.
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When I worked at a garden center in the 80's we would get an order of 1/2 whiskey barrels 1/year, sold for $11.99 ea.  Unloading them from the truck, fumes so strong, we felt like we could get drunk by osmosis.
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I was a total snob about those whiskey 1/2 barrels until I saw George Washington had used them at Mt. Vernon, and a pic of Rudyard Kipling in India standing on a gorgeous porch, several 1/2 whiskey barrels planted.  Now, these full whiskey barrels.  Yep, suitable for our ca. 1900 farmhouse.
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT

Nitty Gritty of Patio Chairs

Good chairs at the round central table, below, for overflow/extra seating.  Easily stored, easily carried.  However, I know they do not meet your full requirements.  These are not chairs conducive to lingering conversation after a good meal, especially in the evening.  Nor are they acceptable for 'him they call fat boy, clocking in at 400 lbs. with a passion for food and film magazines, who'd been a great critic downtown, he'd politely decline dinner happy to dance down the street drinking vodka in the moonlight, with his aging film queen at 58 odd years of age.' Face it, you'd rather keep this couple at your table.    



Pic, above, here.

Much better to keep Fat Boy, 'in his gray overalls, and the aging film queen, master raconteurs both, for dinner in the comfortable chairs', below.  Perhaps she'd share her story of 'the fountain of youth, somewhere west of Fort Worth, where she met Errol Flynn in the Crazy Water Hotel.'

Pic, above, here.

Who doesn't love good stories after a good meal?  No worries the pastiche is a bit embellished, it's the truth told as it should be when there are fireflies, stars and the moon filtered thru branches of century old pecan trees.
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My girlfriend, Miss Gulf Coast, had a Thanksgiving dinner several years ago, she called me ahead letting me know she'd invited a 'character'.  Bless her.  Older, crooked health, and from the margins of society, he'd created his own world, overcoming a few obvious, yet unknown, poor life choices, with dignity, character, delight.  It was my honor to be seated next to him.  He passed before the next Thanksgiving.  We still talk about him.  Yes, I like a good character at table.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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Quotes from, Tom Russell's song, Mineral Wells,
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Almost a decade ago a friend burned me a cd, an unexpected gift.  Written in fat Sharpie, on the cd, Texas Boogie.  Mineral Wells is one of my favorites.
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Honestly, how many times, across decades, can I write/lecture about patio chairs?  And, keep myself amused.  Perhaps you'll tell me a good dinner story that's happened to you.

A Civilized Garden

Lilly is my tax accountant.  We met yesterday morning, last of everything done, filed.  Go us.  Her office is a sweet little house, ca. 1930, renovated for her work.  Believing in a spoon-full-of-sugar I made an appointment afterward to finally peruse the huge antique shop on the main street, a former dry goods business built prior to the Civil War.  Yes, I bought a couple of things.
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A farm stand with homemade soups/sandwiches/teas/cookies, around the corner, was part of that appointment.  Wanted to stop there since moving in almost a year ago, 1st time was the charm.  Eating on their front terrace filled with plants & willow furniture I was able to check email and return calls.  Then a text from a client, her garden on the way to my afternoon appointment.  How amazing, I could answer her text in person.  Leaving the farm stand I bought a frozen quart of homemade chicken/sausage gumbo for dinner and stopped by home to put in fridge.
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The afternoon appointment was graciously easy, the client lives in NYCity, and was not at her farm, the timing flexible.  Since moving to the country all of my pedicures have been well past their sell-by-date.  The salon is near the copy shop where I had to pick up construction drawings for another client.  At the print shop I discovered the lady who most often helps me is from California, and her father, now in his 80's, was a gardener for movie stars.  Designing, installing, maintaining.  Cannot wait to learn more about his work as time passes.  Pedicure acquired, construction drawings secured.
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Stopping at the client who texted, we had time to walk/talk her garden, with her young daughters & dog Lilac too.  Then we all walked a few houses away to her neighbor who had offered her his custom tree house that his children had outgrown.  Beyond perfect.  Of course it is up in the trees.  Cannot wait to see how this is figured out, without destroying the tree house.  Once moved, it will be renovated into a chicken coop.  Another, go us !
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Her daughters were whittling sticks at a patio table on the gravel terrace off the kitchen when I arrived.  Youngest daughter had a pocket knife just like the one I carry.  Dad gave it to me over a decade ago.  She asked to investigate my knife.  Quickly she pulled a small pair of tweezers from it.  Quite rich, 1st time it was ever removed, had zero clue it was there.  Dad would have enjoyed this, he's been gone 4 years.
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After finishing homemade rhubarb tea it was time to check construction at Miss New York's farm.  I was sent packing with fresh asparagus from the garden, and a slice of cake.  Perfect for dinner with the gumbo.  
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Beloved phoned, he was near.  We could meet at the old cemetery and then start Miss New York's 2 mile driveway thru the woods.  There had been a bit of a 'panic' call, last Friday, from the ASID working inside the house about how her steps were landing into the garden.  Beloved shot the level, I told him my vision for the stone steps coming up to the ASID steps from the new side porch.  All is good.  No 'panic' necessary.
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Guess who was not thrilled with gumbo for dinner?  Beloved.  He felt guilty about it too.  Both of us garden dirty, him more than me, he suggested eating out.  We did.  Girasoles, in Watkinsville.  Glad it's in Watkinsville, not our little farm town.  It's too good.
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This wasn't all of my day, but enough to share.  Amazingly, this is the first day since we moved, about 10 months ago, life feels 'civilized', again.  Work schedule & our farm have been in charge of everything.  Their demands rigid.  Knocked off my feet.  Yesterday, I stood up.
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Before leaving Lilly I asked what she had blooming in her garden.  Her answer, exactly expected.  Left her with a hand written list of flowering shrubs, a succession throughout the year.  Today, will email her nurseries where she can find them.  I make gardens wherever I go.  It's my job.
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Pic, above, garden by Robert Broekema.
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Close to what we've started to construct/plant at our farm, above.  Quite civilized, yes?  Finally, getting a garden back in my life.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara  

Choosing Chairs

Choosing chairs for your garden, a couple of things to include.  A chair back tall enough to lean the head back to rest or fall asleep.  And, arms.

Lovely chairs, below, but after-dinner-conversation will flow longer, enrich & be funnier, sitting in the chairs, above.  Wine will taste better too.

Table/chairs, top pic, large enough, perhaps conversation splits into 2 groups, and a pair of chairs are pulled away and closer to each other.
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When clients have a party I always have the same request, Please take pics of your furniture afterward.  I learn most, and adore learning daily, from gardens living/leveraging lives.
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Cote de Texas recently wrote about John Saladino, here,  and his various homes thru the years.  A rich article.  Almost a design course.  And, where both pictures were found.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

What the French Gave: Monocoloring

Credentials I have, yet my true Garden Design education spanned 2+ decades and several continents.

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Smiled when I saw this, below.

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France gave me 2 huge arenas of learning, 1 is below.  

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MonoColoring.

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Language is no barrier to studying the best historic gardens across the globe.  Gardens speak Gardenese.

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Applying a French Garden Design lesson, below.

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If you field gather garden chairs, no worries about style, beyond comfort of course, paint them all the same color. 

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This lesson holds true at every price point home, castle, gated community, farm, villa, pied a terre, section 8 apartment balcony, townhome, even in my little working class cluster home neighborhood.

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Chairs, below, have a choice of colors for monocoloring.  Use trim color from the house, or an interior color that is prominent in the best artwork owned or from the carpet, perhaps a wall color.

Of course more needs to be done, above, in this sweet garden room.

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Vine maintenance, above, is about a month overdue.  Bring a ladder to the French doors landing, with jackhammer drill, mortar screws, galvanized wire, install, finally, threading vine across top of French doors.

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Stay there, and hang the lantern, from the second step, centered above the French doors with the bottom of the lantern hanging 3 courses of bricks above the top of the French doors.

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Done with the ladder, put a level on the pot at the right of the French doors and get it level.

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Finally, use some spare bricks from home construction and raise the serving table, next to the house, 4 bricks high.

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All of these changes, are what my brain does, all of the time, driving or looking at Pinterest.  My brain 'fixes' gardens.  A well-honed skill.

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My brain can rest from this particular form of Garden Design OCD when camping at beach/mountains, and joyfully in my friends gardens.

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When a client garden is headed for Garden Tour it is amazing the to-do list we create for an already fabulous garden.  Pages long.

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If your garden is ready for a garden tour, but you've not done one yet, I strongly encourage you to do it.  Your garden will go to another level.

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You will never have been so driven in your life, promise.  Aside from weeks of exhaustion and hunting/gathering, your checkbook will provide, in a manner that feels like Zen but prior to the tour felt like fear.  It gets worse, you will begin new garden layers, to be finished prior to the tour, you never anticipated.  Providence, supplying epiphanies and inspirations, and you will be Peasant in Chief, happy to oblige. 

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Did you just smirk at this?

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Then YOU are the one that will do all described.  Promise.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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Pic from HERE.  

Furniture in the Garden

'Bring those 2 pillows from the sunroom, and your book', this garden speaks. 

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At what point, in history, did this, below, become a status symbol?

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Does this speak to you?  Evocative of what?

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Every garden speaks.  Whether you think so or not. 

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Henry Ford, "Whether or not you think you can, or you think you can't --you're right."

I've thought meadows, for at least a decade, are the ultimate status symbol.

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Water, tree, meadow, each honored with this bench, more deeply, its invitation to partake.

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Benches have been a favorite focal point for decades.  You may have few opportunities to partake their invitation, but on axis from inside your home, viewing them you'll hear Mary Poppins, "Enough is as good as a feast."

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Picture from Pinterest, here.   Am fascinated with furniture in gardens, especially after a soiree.  Furniture in the Garden, pinterest board.  

Furniture in the Garden: Windsor

George Washington's Windsor chairs, below.  




Shopping with a client yesterday, Atlanta's Merchandise Mart, something new, below.


George Washington would have been thrilled at their material, cast aluminum.


Cocktail table, above, dinner table, below.



Available in several colors.  Scaled to historical perfection, comfortable, light weight.
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Designed, manufactured by Three Coins Cast.  Beyond this you are on your own resourcing them.
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Finally, a new (old) silhouette for the garden.
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At the start of my Garden Design career, 3 decades ago, I knew I had to get clients outside, into their landscape, to ensure they wanted to install their Garden Design plan.  Plans included furnishing the deck/patio.  Ironically, a garden zone NOT included in my horticulture degree.  Paint colors, light fixtures, pots, etc.....too.
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You might like my Furniture in the Garden Pinterest board.  
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

Choosing Wallpaper

In the bay window, below, at the front of my home, facing the street, tiny front yard, and several houses.

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Landscape design begins inside your home.

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Your realm doesn't start outside.

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Winter's tilt of the Earth, light hurtling through space, wrapping wavelengths tenderly around my garden, shooting as particles through the window panes, returning to wavelengths of light & shadow, seen perhaps merely in walking past, better, when there is lunch here with a friend, light & shadow caressing all they touch.
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This is all about you.  Choices.  How do you want to live in your realm?
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Lighting from the garden & views into the garden are interior design choices along with paint colors & wallpaper.
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Sacred vs. profane.  If you aren't making active choices in either direction, the choice is still made.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic taken this week.   Set of chairs a great find at estate sale nearby years ago.  Tiger oak drop leaf gate leg table a  delightful find at local junk shop, now out of business.

For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

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NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow. 

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
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What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 
 I  welcome your input.

The Business of Nurturing Creativity

Most days I'm designing a landscape.  On site, in my head or in the office.

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Foundation plantings, lawn, annuals, a weekly mow-blow-go-testosterone-on-wheels-commodify-all-I-touch ?  No, hire someone else for that travesty.

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 Providence provided the template for gardens, le jardin rustique, for sure.  

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My gardens are like joy.  Always there for the taking.  

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Take joy.

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There is an action step before the joy.  Take.

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Knowing the Providential template for creating a garden, there is still the job of 'taking'.

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Creativity.

Creativity is honored, deeply, everyday of my life.  It is a tool to use.  I do not own the tool, merely allowed to partake of its precious gift.  Daily.  Honored.  This tool is kept working, with having pets, books, music, walking in Nature most days, having my own garden, colors/furnishings/art/comfort of my home, meals with the pleasure of choosing plates/silver/tray/linen napkin eating in the bay window or conservatory or potager, deep friendships with girlfriends, knowing to get out of my comfort zone every few months, travel/seeing new things, gratitude in Providence, and Beloved.
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Creativity.
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I lost it once, decades ago, not knowing it needed nurturing.  Remember, well, feeling its loss.  Not the loss of Providence, exactly, but the loss of a great gift from Providence I had not honored.  Never want to go there again.  It's not uncommon for issues to arise, needing attentions subtracting from honoring my creativity.  I don't go there, the answer will be, 'no'.

Seeing, deeply, the creativity of others delights my soul and feeds the muse.  In Jamaica, a few days ago, investigating the restaurant while our meal was cooking, above, I was given a gift.  Looking up from our table, below.

Better, below, walking on the beach were these 'chairs' and table.  The table was obvious, but I had to investigate the 'chairs'.

At waters edge, and going nowhere, these chairs are perfect, and they were free.  For the creativity.

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Are you faster than I was?  My brain was molasses for a few seconds, figuring out the 'chairs'.

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Bird bath pedestals buried in sand, with a ring of concrete added to the tops.

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Perfect joy, feeding my creativity, in Thanks at the gift of someone else's creativity.

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Hope their chairs have done the same for you.

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara

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Pics taken in Discovery Bay, Jamaica, WI, this month.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

.

NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

.

Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

.

Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow. 

.

Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
.

What do YOU want?

.

Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

.

Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 
 I  welcome your input.

Lunch Ministry, "...now it is a person's table that atones for him.” Talmud, Chagiga 27a

"This notion that we repent through our tables suggests that the table not only be a place to eat and gather with friends and family but a place where repair is performed. We think about where we have fallen short and how we can make up for it by the way we treat others who we bring close to us, close enough to speak to across a table."

From my 20's I have been mentored into Lunch Ministry.

Women, mostly in their 70's, inviting me to lunch.  Women my age could not come out to play, they had babies/children.  Me?  Infertility.

Tables beautifully set, dishes/cloth napkins/silver/platters/center piece, a meal carefully chosen and lovingly made.

 Conversation.  Topics never ceasing, laughter, silence, time became obsolete, something for mortals, not our lunch table.

Never was a dish allowed to be cleared.  Time together was the focus.  Their lessons in Lunch Ministry, though many of those dear ladies are gone, continue.  Me, now, the lady-of-age.  Passing forward the gift, Lunch Ministry.

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Never mentioned at the time, I know now the best part of Lunch Ministry.   Once my guest has left, the lone clearing of table, cleaning dishes at the sink.  Musing over conversation, harboring myriad directions of prayer.

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"If an altar is like the Divine's table then when there is no altar our tables must serve in its place. "The verse began with 'altar' and ended with 'table,'" taught both Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish. These were noted sparring partners, but there was something that the two agreed upon: this teaching."

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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Quotes from Jewish World Review article, here.
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Pics via my Pinterest board, Furniture in the Garden.  Second pic via Petersham Nurseries.

For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

.

NOTE to my gardening friends... look for changes to come. 

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.'   Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

.

Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'.  Saved the article for a year before reading it.  Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

.

Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0.  A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life.  Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact.  Signed up  for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow. 

.

Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method.  Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix.
.

What do YOU want?

.

Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

.

Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Just so you know... 
 I  welcome your input.

Beautiful Easy Landscape: Green, Brown, White

At her kitchen porch, below.  Her color theme is the beautiful landscape classic: green, brown, white.
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With 300+ acres everything must be simple.  No care.  More than pretty & easy, her landscape must leverage her life.  What does that mean?
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Your beautiful landscape must work for you.
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A large local nursery advertises it's- fun- to- play- in- the- dirt.  Really?  That is a landscape?
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Beautiful landscapes, in my realm, work for me.  How?  Increase property value, decrease HVAC, attractive to pollinators/guests/me, little time 'playing in the dirt'.  Instead, hours are spent in my garden reading or having meals in the Conservatory, cutting flowers to bring inside, having lunch in the potager on a sunny winter's day, awakening to the scent of tea olive, playing with my pets, or enjoying the harvest table on the patio as I've spread out materials and laptop to create a power point, and etc.
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Play in the dirt?  Sure, a part of my realm to enjoy, but merely a sliver of what beautiful landscapes provide.
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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara
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Pic shot at a client's home yesterday.  Would love a flower show display of 12 landscapes all with the green-brown-white theme set on a small terrace with 2 chairs + table.  Same story, new each time.

For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

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Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

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Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

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Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

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Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.

The Best Garden Design Ideas

The best garden design ideas are simple.  And have been done for thousands of years.

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No worries, ever, about copying them.

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Each site is unique.

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Any garden design idea you choose to copy will be original and fresh in your garden.

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Focal point on axis with backdrop, below.

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With greater surprise as the garden is walked, there are more axis on this focal point, below.

Same table, above/below, as yesterday's post.

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Except shot from different axis.

Backdrop hedges are as important as the focal point and axis.

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Without the backdrop hedges you would see a mash-up of other garden rooms.

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Gardens must have mystery.

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Garden & Be Well,     XO Tara

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I didn't want to copy pretty gardens when I got out of college.  I wanted to be unique.  Those unique efforts created cringe worthy gardens.  Aside from ugly, they cost money, and the worst loss, TIME.  No one can buy more time.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client, local/on-line.

.

Award winning speaker, hire me for your group, local/out-of-state.

                                                                                 .

Books by Tara Dillard, Amazon

.

Tara Dillard & Associates Design: farm to city pied-a-terre.

.

Construction by Award Winning

Shaefer Heard Construction, licensed home-builder, renovation - new construction.  Heard's Landscaping a unit of SHC.  3 decades of service.